


The. First. Cut. Is. The. Deepest.

by DoeEyedButterFly



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-10-29 22:00:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20803655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoeEyedButterFly/pseuds/DoeEyedButterFly
Summary: after a conversation about who he is and why





	1. Flesh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emcee857](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emcee857/gifts).
**Summary for the Chapter:**

> how it began...

Poodle-lady Abigail was certainly not the kind of breed, he would have ever chosen for himself, but as always, Eliot didn't have a say in it.  
Today it was his job to take her out though. Mom told him to do so, he wasn't one to question that. If anything, he should be proud.  
Whenever Mom wanted or needed something done, she came to him, he was good at doing what he was told, good at getting thigs done, just like father. He was the good boy. One of three, the youngest. Obviously Mom couldn't rely on the twins, his older brothers, Ethan and Eric, even if she would never admit it, her golden boys were up to nothing but trouble- and they knew it, Father knew it, Grandpa' who's house they stayed in, after the divorce, who favored them, but always made time in his day to play a round of Scrabble with Eliot, knew it. Everyone knew it. As much as Eliot hated being teased by his brothers for being ugly and a nerd, for listening to weird music and openly telling Mom that he loved her, even around friends, the few ones he actually had, most of all though, for being a push-over, is what they called him, as much as Eliot hated all of that, guess who made it to Blackwell Academy- and who didn't?

"You're a genius!", Father yelled over the phone, after Eliot read the acceptance letter at the dinner table, so loud everyone could hear it, even the neighbors.  
"I'm proud of you my Darling", Mom said and wiped a single tear of joy away with a dish towel. "Tomorrow I'll go and get a suit for you, no school uniforms there, but I want my baby to look good and elegant on his first day."  
Ethan and Eric gave each other "the look". A signal. A something. Eliot never really was able to make out, what it was, but he knew, Twins have a secret language. And whatever they were saying to one another, they were up to no good.  
"Momma, I'd rather have a new pair of jeans and a sweat shirt, something that... you know...", he glanced over at his brothers,... "something no one else wore before."  
  
But the very next day, Mrs. Hampden came home with a suit, black pants, dark purple jacket, perfectly matching his brown hair, as she pointed out, when he tried it on and it fit. She'd taken time out of her very busy schedule and got it in her lunch break. So instead of being a brat about not getting what he wanted, he decided to be grateful. He didn't have a say in it anyway.

Just as he was grateful to spend time with the family dog now. Months after school started, months after everyone laughed about his ugly suit, even more than his ugly face.  
  
How it must feel like to be a dog, to only ever see the outside world and walk across the street, while on a leach. If you're pretty enough, you can win big trophies, just like humans. If you're fruitful, everyone just wants your baby, but not really shows any interest in you, also just like humans, if you're ugly though or your attitude doesn't fit in the picture, if you're an outcast, nothing is given. No home, no shelter, no food sometimes, no babies, no love. Nothing.  
And the dog clearly never has a say in any of it.

Abi started sniffing on something, finally. Eliot silently begged the old girl to hurry up. Finding a spot, that smelled good to her, seemed to take forever today.  
"Come on, poop, poop for Daddy. Poop."  
Not sure, who was walking whom, Eliot unpacked one of the plasic bags he had stored in his backpack, hoping the sight of it would convince the dog to finally go, but no, Abi just threw her head back, wiggled her ears and then turned left.  
Weird, usually they would turn right here, but the dog apparantly wanted to try something new. Eliot absolutely didn't have a say in it.

  
He sighed deeply, relieved, when Abigail crouched down, ready to potty and quickly unhooked her. He never liked the thought of someone holding on to a living being, while they were going number one or two. Giving the pet a little decency in the bushes, Eliot walked around a corner and-  
  
"WHAT THE FUCK?"  
  
For a moment he was unable to move or speak. A bundle, something that should be a person, but weirdly huddled, was leaning against a tree stump, slightly hidden between bushes and greenery to the left and right, sitting in a puddle of blood, a puddle that was growing bigger and bigger rapidly.  
  
When he took a step forward, he could actually make out and smell the wounded flesh, burst open skin, violently ripped, almost torn shreds. A fist clenched around a metal looking object. A razor blade.  
The bloody bundle, the injured person, was crying, looking down, not noticing him.  
Another step forward.  
He had no idea what to say and then he regognized her.  
  
"C-Chloe?!"

Chloe Elizabeth was one of the girls, not laughing at his clothes. She was weird and quiet and a nerd and... AND she listened to the same kind of music he liked.  
Chloe Elizabeth was one of the girls, he knew since kindergarten. She didn't have many friends but the ones she had, were real and easy to talk to and be around.  
Chloe Elizabeth was one of the girls, smart, pretty, but still down to earth. She did tell her parents publicly that she loved them. Until she couldn't say it anymore.  
  
Actually, Chloe Elizabeth was THE one girl, cutting her own hair, knowing every tool that belongs in a toolbox and kissing him on the cheek once, when his date in Middle School, a girl that was not Chloe E., not only dumped him on a sunny summer afternoon in the town shopping mall, but also made out right in front of him with his own brother Ethan. He never forgot about that. He never forgot about her either. Sometimes he thought about her, in the dark sticky room he shared with Grandpa', the twins of course had their own bedroom, too small for him to move in as well. Of course, he didn't have a say in that. Luckily, Grandpa' fell asleep fast, most nights at least and luckily, he was fortunate enough to get provided with his own dorm room by Blackwell.  
  
Apparantly though, Chloe Elizabeth was also a girl, who harmed herself.  
When she lifted her head, he could see her eyes, swollen and puffy from crying, tears streaming down, but remaining on her face, like they didn't fully want to leave her, like they were clinging to her.  
  
"B-uhm... A-are you okay?"  
  
"Do I look okay to you?"  
  
"No. No you don't. I'm... I'm gonna call an ambulance for you, don't move."  
  
"No, please don't bother."  
  
"B-But, uhm... you're bleeding heavily. Look, you remember my mother, she's working at the hospital, I could take you there or just call home..."  
  
"Nah, thanks."

"_Your_ Mom?"

"NO!"  
  
"Okay, okay, uh... can-can you walk?"

  
  
  
And so Eliot Hamden, much to the surprise of his entire family, returned without the dog but brought home a girl.  
He carried her in his arms, up the stairs, took care of her injuries and told both his brothers, their room was his and Chloe's now, as long as she needed it.  
Grandpa' nodded, Mom smiled, but didn't say anything, the twins gave each other a look, a signal, a something. Eliot didn't care.   
He had a girlfriend to look after. For once, he had a say in something. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update (one day after posting it): I had to make some small changes because I did some more research on him and some of the facts weren't correct. Hope, you still enjoy(ed). Thanks for reading.


	2. Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> how it ended...

"Go home Chloe."  
"Please, it's Christmas."  
"Yes, I know, which is why I'm telling you to go home. I'm... busy."  
"Do you, do you have... uh... company right now?"  
"You mean a client? No."  
  


The door was closed right into Chloe's face. She looked down at her boots, back on the sidewalk, less than five minutes of walking the icy streets and she would have been back at her house. God no.

  
Her eyes went to the mailbox, was it empty? For a brief moment, Chloe asked herself, if the Caulfields sent _her_ a Christmas card. They'd known her, been her neighbors.  
She should check. No, she really shouldn't. She should go home, but really couldn't.  
  


"Jeanny", she called again and knocked three times. Then rang the door bell, that sounded just like the one in her house. Dad's house. Less than five minutes. That's all it was. She rang again, then knocked again.  
"What's all that noise?", an elderly neighbor opened his window on the opposite side and yelled across the street. "What are you doing there? Aren't you William's little girl?", Chloe raised her middle finger as an answer, she was pretty sure, the dude had already been half blind, when she was born. Why was everybody and their brother in this town always up in everyone elses business, especially hers?  
  
  
"I said no!" Chloe could hear the young woman in the hallway, she was shouting, although standing right behind that door.  
"Please, it's cold, I have nowhere else to go."  
"Home?"  
Chloe looked around herself, no one to be seen, yet she still felt the need to whisper it, her freezing lips pressed against the dark wooden door. "Her boyfriend is there."  
  
  
Another three seconds past, until the door opened again, just about a hand wide.  
"Can I come in?"  
  
  
"Jeanny, can I come in? Please?"  
  
"Do you have my money?"  
"It's Christmas."  
"Yes or no?"  
  
Chloe shook her head, looked down at her boots, but just as the door was about to close again, she quickly reached the inside of her jacket pocket, shut her eyes and got a purple piggy bank out, which she handed over to the demanding young woman, who eyed it suspiciously, before taking it in one hand, waving Chloe inside with the other.  
  


  
****

"That was amazing, lemon pie", murmured Eliot, pushing back the heavy blanket with his legs, while also trying to part Chloe's lips with his tongue, as she pressed them together even harder and turned her head to the side, until he finally gave up, stuck it in her ear instead and began licking it persistently.

Chloe who instantly wished for a physical mechanism to close her ears as well, wondering who in this fucked up universe taught guys out there, that this was what every chick liked, she grinded her teeth, yet somehow managed to sarcasticly remark "I thought we talked about the various fruit pies."  
  
"Oh sorry, I thought it's so fitting... really sour, yet refreshing, sometimes a little sweet, veeery delicious, hehe... lot of times baked." He winked.  
  
Chloe turned her head again, facing him. "Nice one", but her smile didn't reach her eyes and for Eliot, it was just an invitation to kiss her properly on the lips. He stopped briefly though, when he realized, that Chloe wasn't participating.

  
"Is everything alright? I feel so distant from you lately."  
"_Distant_? Dude, you're still inside of me."  
  


"You know what I mean. Come on Chloe, talk to me." But she was already wiggling herself free, sitting up on the bed, pulling her shirt from somewhere underneath their bodies, while Eliot was reaching for a tissue to get rid of... something that couldn't be used again.  
  


"I don't understand this", complained Eliot, shaking his head. "You obviously liked it last night, do I always have to wait now, untiI you drift away? I mean... of course, I'll do it, if that's what you need..."  
  
Chloe stopped dressing herself in the middle of pulling up a sock. "What?"

****

"Do you want a drink?"  
  
Chloe shook her head, but Jeanny had already turned her back and was headed out of the room, so Chloe was forced to raise her voice and said a little louder "No thanks."  
  
"Still Daddy's little good girl, hm?", remarked Jeanny, when she came back with a glass in her hand but when she saw Chloe's face turning pale, she was quick to apologize, in her case that meant, she just dropped the sarcastic tone, trying a softer one.

"So... you're here again, although you clearly can't afford this." Chloe's eyes wandered to the piggy bank, now on a table, out of her hands, out of her control, her last savings, her ticket out of the Bay.   
"Why do you keep coming to my house? Can't you get someone else to beat you up?"

"I am not asking to get beaten", Chloe replied almost inaudible but with a certain sense of bitterness in her voice.

Jeanny shrugged. In all this time she had known Chloe, in all this time she had been her neighbor, she never really quite figured out, what was going on behind those blue eyes. Just like now, the way the young girl was just standing there, tall and lost, in the middle of the bedroom.   
  
"Whatever. Come on now, you know the drill. Take your shirt off, let's get this bullshit over with."

****

"Eliot, I was sleeping!"   
"Yeah, but..."  
"SLEEPING! What the hell were you thinking?" Chloe pressed her back against the bed's head rest, trying not to hysterically scream She still was only partly dressed.  
"I didn't plan it, I swear, I was just playing around a little, I was gonna wake you up, I shook you but you just kept snoring. I thought that's funny you know, since you always complain, having trouble falling asleep".  
"Playing around? What does that even mean? What did you do?"  
"You know..."  
"No, Eliot, I really don't. Speak."  
"Just... like, with my hands, you know, but then you still didn't wake up, so..."  
"So you just went for it? See how far you could get?" This would be the perfect moment to slap him... or not.  
"I thought, you liked it, it looked like you did."  
"I WAS SLEEPING!"  
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, don't yell at me, it won't happen again, I promise."  
"Damn straight dude, you bet your life, it won't." Chloe exhaled, her head hurt. What the actual fuck?... Thinking of fucking... "So, where is the thing from last night? Did you throw it away?"  
"What thing?"  
"Your... thing Eliot,... the _condom_. Come on man, I don't need Mom to find it somewhere in this mess later. Where is it?" Why was he red like a tomato, just like a tomato?  
"Uhm..."  
"You used one, right?... Right?... Eliot?"  
"Like I said, it wasn't planned... I didn't mean to... I- I mean, you know... Chloe! Chloe wait! Come back! CHLOE!"

****  


The first scatch didn't even hurt anymore. Chloe was too used to it. Alternating left and right hand, Jeanny went up and down Chloe's neck and back with her sharp nails, slashing open Chloe's sensitive skin, allowing the pain to come out... or did she allow it back... in?  
  
Chloe moaned, when Jeanny grabbed the flesh around Chloe's hips and pulled tightly. The house smelled like vanilla. Like vanilla and cinnamon. Like Christmas.  
Jeanny smelled like Christmas and like cookies. Had she been baking, before Chloe came over? She smelled like a mom, of course she did, she _was_ a mom. _Was_...  
  
Chloe cried out, when Jeanny dug her nails in deeper and pulled tighter.  
It had something... something to fall back on, something reliable. Something that would still be there, when Chloe was back home, forced to sit in her room, listening to her Mom and David getting their freak on. Ho, ho, ho. Christmas-cookie time.  
  
  
The tears finally came, when Jeanny scratched all the way down Chloe's arms, leaving bloody traces, as always she paused, asked if she should continue and then kept going, when Chloe nodded. She always did.  
This time around, Chloe just sunk her head into Jeanny's shoulder and cried and cried until her voice broke.  
It took her long to finish today, Jeanny normally never waisted more than twenty minutes on Chloe, poor little orphan Chloe.

****

"Can you please talk to me, please?", Eliot kept hammering against the bathroom door, but Chloe ignored him. She showered and scrubbed. Like an idiot.  
She didn't know much, but she knew, this was in vain. She should punch him, but she wouldn't.  
She would rather take it out on herself. Because she was stupid, for trusting him, for letting him stay in her bed, for letting him sleep with her... while she was asleep.  
Chloe turned off the shower. Fr a moment she thought about Jeanny.  
Jeanny was a teen mom, she was 17, when she had Alec. She was 20, when they moved to Arcadia Bay into her Grandmothers old house and they became neighbors. She was 22, when Alec ran across the grocery store parking lot, onto the street and got killed by a truck, the same year William, Chloe's Dad, should follow him.   
  
More hammering. "Oh for fucks sake, Eliot!", yelled Chloe. "Piss off already!"  
She turned the shower back on, scrubbed one more time, just to make sure.

****

Chloe put her shirt back on, it burned on her open and still bleeding skin, good. She felt something. Something real.  
Something other than pain, although it was just that, pain.  
She had already opened the door, when Jeanny pulled her back by her elbow. "Here", she said, handing back the piggy bank. "You can't do this anymore, I can't do this anymore."  
Chloe looked at the purple pig in her hand, then at Jeanny. She wanted to say something, do something, but didn't know what. Finally, she went for a hug, saying "Merry Christmas", but when she went for a small kiss on the cheek, Jeanny pushed her out of the door and closed it quickly.  
  


When she came back at New Years eve, no one opened, the house was vacated and when the oposite neighbor saw her, he opened his window again and let her know, "they got her, they came and took her, better that way, she was bonkers anyway."  
Whatever that meant, Chloe flipped him off again and went back home, she came to the conclusion, if she wanted to feel something, or nothing at all, from now on, she had to take care of it herself and asked her mom for some new razor blades and a knife.

When spring came, she not only had worked herself through four entire razor blades, but she also had discovered a place, where she could actually release some stress on her arms and legs, without being seen by anyone.  
Or, almost without being seen, because one particular day, a really ugly dog found and nearly pooped on her, if it wasn't for the guy on the other side of the leash, a dude she knew since kindergarten and who looked at her with a mix of confusion and curiosity.

He always refused to scratch her and he threw the razor blades away, but he let her come to his house whenever she wanted and he made sure, she was feeling something.  
Chloe wasn't entirely sure, if she liked, what she was feeling, but at least, it was something, something real. Something other than pain, although it was just that. 


End file.
